Dipper Birds
by DidSomeoneSayDipperPines
Summary: A one-shot I drummed up after learning that a bird with a very familiar name inhabits parts of Oregon.


A rain dove's soft coo drifted lazily down from the bird's cedar tree perch, causing Dipper Pines to look up from his sketchbook in hopes of seeing the maker of the soothing sound. After only a few mere seconds of searching, the boy's observant, chestnut brown eyes locked onto the pale, gray-and-cream colored bird, which was now preening its almost iridescent tail feathers. The brunette watched for a bit, taking note of how the dove used not only its beak, but its entire head to spread the waterproof oil from its uropygial gland across its back and wings. Dipper smiled. Who knew the handful of knowledge he had gained from a dusty old bird book he had found in Stan's office would come in handy?

The preteen tore his gaze from the washing bird and looked back to his sketchbook, haphazardly chewing on the end of his pencil. The eraser had long since worn away, but gnawing on the metal seemed to help the boy concentrate, or helped preoccupy him when needed. A long, exasperated sigh escaped his throat as he stared down at his creation. Dipper was no artist, but for once his drawing seemed to be turning out pretty good. But no one had warned him of the heavy burdens artist's had to put up with. Or, more like burden. And that burden, Dipper was learning, was Artist's Block.

Oh how the boy hated Artist's Block. No, not hated, despised. Resented. Fucking loathed. The unwelcome disease sent his normally steady flow of ideas to a screeching halt, and Dipper didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

He leaned back, pressing his spine against the giant redwood whose thick roots offered rather comfortable makeshift seats. Dipper took a deep breath, catching a whiff of melting pine sap before the scent was whisked away by a light breeze which enveloped him in the smells of bluebells and damp wood. The bluebells were just one kind of plant the boy hadn't expected to see in Oregon. There were tulips and daffodils and bee balm growing wild all summer long, accompanied by carnations and mountain laurel, hidden away in patches of not-so-rare onion grass.

The twitter of a pine siskin rang out, and the bird revealed itself as it chased after another siskin, this one a female. It ducked abruptly, corkscrewing below the other bird and clutching her talons in his. The pair tumbled to the ground, the male immediately landing on the female's back and flapping his wings violently.

Dipper looked down. Nature was just too open with things.

His eyes once again fixated onto his drawing, and he set his jaw in a thoughtful way. He took his pencil out of his mouth and gingerly placed the well-sharpened tip on the sketch, knocking down his Artist's Block with sheer determination. He _was_ going to finish this drawing, and it _was_ going to turn out how he wanted it to.

He ran the pencil repeatedly over the page, leaving carefully placed lines and slight shadings that began to help the picture's figure become clearer. Stroke after stroke, the tiny image took shape.

A sagebrush lizard scuttled over his ankle, but the boy was so immersed in his thoughts that only an absent, more paranoid part of him noticed.

Dipper wasn't sure how much time had passed when he finished, having left his wristwatch at the shack in his hurry to get away from any distractions. All he knew was that the sun was setting, and that the sketch in his book was the best he ever made.

It was of a small, gray bird with shining black eyes, its tiny feathers tight against its light frame. Its backwards pointing knees were slightly bent, as if it were ready to move, and the scales on its feet were highly defined. All in all, it was an almost perfect drawing of the specimen the boy had observed by the waterfall.

The brunette quickly scribbled two words at the top of the page, then held in up so a stray shaft of golden sunlight struck it, revealing the small words as "WATER OUZEL."

Dipper stood up, glancing up through the monstrous redwood boughs at the setting sun, estimating that he had around an hour before it truly got dark. Carefully he stuffed his sketchbook into his vest, stuck his pencil behind his ear, and began to hike towards the cliffs. If he could get up there in a half hour, he would have ten minutes to find the birds, and would be able to make it back to the Mystery Shack by the time the wolves came out. He smiled, satisfied with his ability to plan things.

Several chestnut-backed chickadees darted overhead, landing in the folds of lichen dripping down from selected redwood branches. Two red squirrels darted up a lone oak tree, disappearing inside their leafy nest. A rain owl swooped from above, stretching its legs out in front of it and landing rather awkwardly on top of a foraging dusky shrew before taking to the sky again with a few heavy beats of its wings.

The dusty deer path below Dipper's feet grew steeper and steeper, rising almost an inch every step. The redwoods began to give way to an assortment of other trees like trembling aspen, gray birch, blue spruce, sugar maple, and at least four kinds of pine. Quickly picking his way up the now rocky slope, the boy scrambled over boulders and fallen trees, wincing as thorns caught his legs, leaving bloody lacerations from his ankles to his knees.

Dipper heard the waterfall before he saw it . . . the steady roar of cascading water stuck well to the random beat of large boulders being tumbled downstream. He stopped a few yards away from the river, crouching down and peering out from behind a giant loblolly pine. A low juniper allowed him to see the riverside, but nothing could see him. The perfect spot to watch the display that was about to go down.

The loblolly swished in the breeze, its long needles brushing against each other to the rapping of a pileated woodpecker's beak against a nearby cedar. Dipper glanced at the red-headed bird, watching in silence as it tugged a maggot out from below the cedar's red-brown bark. When the boy's gaze drifted back to the river, he realized that the bird he'd been waiting for had arrived and was now hopping from boulder to boulder, peering intently into the rushing water.

It looked almost identical to the bird in his drawing, just with a few extra details. Its short tail bobbed up and down as it stared curiously at the few life forms inhabiting the cold river, and appeared rather spunky and intelligent by the way it moved. Dipping its beak into the water, it crouched down, and then, right before the preteen's eyes, it was gone.

The boy took the chance to pull out a notebook and jotted down the words, "FEMALE. POSSIBLY REARING CHICKS ON THE CLIFFSIDE."

He looked up, watching as the chestnut-headed bird made a reappearance, running out of the water with a dragonfly nymph struggling in its beak. The captured creature squirmed violently against the bird, slamming itself into its white chest in a violent attempt to escape. Its efforts were quickly ended when the bird began to repeatedly smash the nymph into the rock below its clawed feet, then pinned it down with one foot and tore it in half, gulping it down. The bird then picked up the remaining half and took to the air, shooting towards the waterfall.

Dipper jumped to his feet, dashing over to the cliff side in pursuit. He slowed down and got on his hands and knees when he reached the edge, then peered over. Sure enough, he saw the bird disappear into what appeared to be a ball of moss stuck to the cliff face, then pop out again and fly over him on her way back to the stream.

Straining to hear above the roaring water, Dipper failed to distinguish the faint peeping that he knew echoed from the nest's warm confines. The mother bird swooped from above, once again handing off a nymph to her offspring. The boy could have sworn he heard a tiny chirp, but he couldn't be sure due to the intense background noise.

He waited for a few minutes after the bird entered its nest, then realized that the bird had settled in for the night and would not emerge again until sunrise. The brunette crawled away from the edge of the cliff, then stood up and glanced at the sunset. A half hour before dark. A thirty minute walk back to the Mystery Shack. He could make it.

Dipper started back down the cliffs, struggling to keep his balance on the shale that crumbled and slid beneath his black and white sneakers. A boreal owl hooted as he passed its black walnut perch, followed by the eerie yet calming call of a common loon bobbing on the gently lapping lake far below. The boy made a mental note to explore by the lake, deciding that the loon was a bird worth finding. That thought brought him back to the water ouzel family.

He had chosen to observe the tiny fishing birds when he first saw them in Stan's bird book, and had told Mabel that he just wanted to see them because he liked their unusual fishing methods. Although that was true, there was another reason that he hadn't told his twin, knowing that she'd laugh. It was the bird's nickname that had caught his eye while skimming through the Oregon bird book, and it was the nickname that helped him decide to search for the little creatures.

Dipper knew it was cheesy and rather comical, but he had chosen the water ouzel, also known as the dipper bird.


End file.
